The cylinder was discovered following an earlier, fruitless excavation by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard. In 1850 Layard dug into three mounds on the site of the ruined city of Babylon but found little of importance and concluded that it was not worth his time continuing there. His assistant Hormuzd Rassam, a controversial figure remembered as much for his brutal tactics as his discoveries, returned to the mounds in 1879 on behalf of the British Museum. He uncovered a number of important buildings, most notably the Esagila – a major temple to Marduk, though it was not identified as such until Robert Koldewey‘s excavation of 1900. The excavations found a large quantity of business documents and, buried in the temple’s foundations, the Cyrus Cylinder.[10] Rassam’s excavations went on until 1882.[11] The cylinder was announced to the public by Sir Henry Rawlinson at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society on 17 November 1879.[12] Rawlinson’s paper on “Notes on a newly-discovered Clay Cylinder of Cyrus the Great” was published in the society’s journal the following year.[13]

However, it has been argued that interpreting this in the context of human rights is an anachronism alien to the historical context. Elton L. Daniel criticizes recent scholarship for its emphasis on Cyrus’ tolerance, and his championing of “human rights”, describing such scholarship as “rather anachronistic” and tendentious.[61] T.C. Mitchell’s view is that such an interpretation of the cylinder as ‘the first charter of human rights’ “reflects a misunderstanding.”[8] Curtis, Tallis, and Salvini note that despite the Cylinder’s reference to a just and peaceful rule, and reporation of deported people, the modern concept of human rights would have been quite alien to Cyrus’s contemporaries and is not mentioned by the cylinder.[62]

MacGregor points out that “Comparison by scholars in the British Museum with other similar texts showed that rulers in ancient Iraq had been making comparable declarations upon succeeding to the [Babylonian] throne for two millennia before Cyrus” and notes “it is one of the museum’s tasks to resist the narrowing of the object’s meaning and its appropriation to one political agenda”. Cyrus has often been depicted as a particularly humane ruler, based on his characterization by ancient sources such as Persian texts, the Old Testament of the Bible and Herodotus,[63][64] but as M.A. Dandamaev points out, “almost all the texts … which praise Cyrus have the character of propagandistic writings and demand a very critical approach … by accepting everything said in the texts which were composed by Babylonian priests, we ourselves become the victims of Cyrus’ propaganda.”

Arguing further in favour of the “human rights charter” viewpoint, Reza Shabani asserts that the cylinder “discusses human rights in a way unique for the era, dealing with ways to protect the honor, prestige, and religious beliefs of all the nations dependent to Iran in those days.”[65][

Additional fragments

On 5 Janu

ary 2010 two fragments of cuneiform tablets were discovered in the collections of the British Museum bearing inscriptions similar to those of the Cyrus cylinder. These include verbatim copies of the proclamation made by Cyrus the Great. The Museum stated that the fragments would be studied and presented at a workshop in London and that “it is intended that the two new pieces should be exhibited for the first time in Tehran, together with the Cylinder itself”.[66][67]

Dispute over loan of the cylinder

Prior to the discovery of the two fragments, the Museum had promised to loan the Cyrus cylinder alone to the National Museum of Iran, with Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museum, agreeing in Tehran in January 2009 to a three-month loan to occur by the end of the year. This was postponed, however, and the Museum said in October that it was monitoring the political situation in Iran following the presidential election in June. While the Museum stated that agreement had been reached with Iranian colleagues that the loan would be postponed to allow investigation of the two newly-discovered fragments, a dispute has arisen over the additional delay, with an Iranian vice president, Hamid Baqaei, accusing the Museum of “acting politically”.[66][67]

See also

Pages in category “Akkadian inscriptions”

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